


unkind galaxies.

by kaiiarei



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Everything Hurts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Sexual Content, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Author Regrets Everything, Unhappy Ending, not smut, sorry - Freeform, t'challa isnt in the story guys, this is very gay, why do i keep doing this to u guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 07:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiiarei/pseuds/kaiiarei
Summary: they hoped that the universe would take pity on them, that it would let them rest.some sad shit abt my fave gay boys! sorry it took so long to post a new fic. this is rly angtsy guys sorry.





	unkind galaxies.

**Author's Note:**

> yo im actually so sorry this is so sad byE skjfsdk sigh its missing them hours
> 
> unedited, all mistakes are mine :)

steve walks in quietly, bucky almost wouldn't've heard the soft pads of the soles of his bare feet if not for his enhanced hearing. he nearly jumps out of bed. _steve’s back._ god, they liked to pretend they were ordinary. that they could fall into normalcy at a touch. they couldn’t. their lives were too dangerous. that didn’t stop them from being like any other pair of star-crossed lovers. well, as much as they could be anyway. the pair of them were still international criminals, bucky still didn’t have all his memories back.

 

so he turns, “you’re back.”

steve smiles softly back at him, a twist of lips that sends bucky’s heart beating out of his chest. steve didn’t smile much these days, so he took what he got. “yeah. couldn’t leave ‘ya for too long,” steve replies.

steve crawls onto the mat that bucky’s laying on. he tangles his legs with bucky’s, sighing at the warmth.

 

bucky takes a look at steve. there are deep, pronounced bags under his eyes, and his posture is sloping downward, even laying down. there’s two, large, purpling bruises on his cheek and he’s wincing.

“why’d you get here so late?” bucky asks.

“the op ended earlier then we thought, so we have a few days. they went off somewhere, i came here. as usual. t’challa said you’d be awake.”

bucky hums contentedly.

“you’re my best guy, stevie.”

“you’re my best guy too.”

that’s when bucky leans over and presses a soft kiss to steve’s slack lips. it’s completely innocent. bucky knows what steve need. he always does.

“i missed you,” bucky says.

“i know.”

 

they stay wrapped up together, kissing sweetly, until steve’s lips go lax against bucky’s and he murmurs a soft, “i love you.”

“i love you too, stevie,” bucky replies, before rolling off steve and tangling himself with his legs.

 

they fall asleep like that, and can’t help but wonder if that’s their natural state of being. so deep into each other’s souls that they’re seeing stars. when they die, they want it to be together. they could see steve’s ma, bucky’s ma, becca and daisy, the howlies, peggy.

 

_they’re on that damned train again. “bucky!” steve cries before the love of his life plummets into the distance below. steve stays on the train for what seems like hours. he’s dead-eyed when he comes back to the howlies._

 

_“barnes?” they ask._

_he shakes his head. they look down._

_“i’m sorry,” they serenade him with. a chorus of pity. or loss. steve doesn’t know the difference anymore._

 

_he wants to drink until his insides turn to liquor and his body turns to stone. he can’t. peggy tries to talk to him. he doesn’t feel much._

 

_two months later, steve hurls a plane into the arctic._

 

_when he does it, he wants to die._

 

_he gasps awake, and bucky’s- no, the winter soldier’s hand is clasped around his neck._

_“you failed me,” he says. “you let me fall.” his grip tightens._

_“i’m sorry- i’m sorry!” steve says over and over._

_he repeats it again and again and again until steve’s sobbing because he knows it’s true and he’s seeing spots and h-_

 

steve jolts up in the middle of the night. he turns away from bucky, detangling their legs and curling in on himself. _he sobs._

 

“steve?” steve hears that soft, melodic voice. steve doesn’t sing anymore. “steve?” the voice says again and- no, that can’t be right, bucky is dead, steve killed him.

“y-you’re dead,” steve stutters out. “i-i killed you, i _let you fall.”_

 

bucky feels his heart break clean in two. “stevie, doll, it’s just a nightmare, sweetheart, you’re gonna be okay, you didn’t let me fall, it’s not your fault,” he says, ministrations soft and warm.

 

he keeps talking until steve’s stopped shaking. he wraps his arms around his lover, and presses a ghost of a kiss to his neck.

“shh, doll, it’s okay, i’m here.”

“i-i’m sorry,” steve apologizes.

“don’t apologize, you always take care of me, it’s my turn to return the favor. you deserve it,” bucky scolds.

“do i deserve that?”

 

bucky doesn’t think his heart can hurt anymore. “ _yes,_ yes, you deserve so much, you deserve everything, i love you- i love you.” he runs his arm on the plane of steve’s back.

 

steve cries quietly into his shirt, tears staining the soft peach fabric, which glows into the moonlight. steve’s favorite fruit was peaches.

 

-

 

“fuck, steve, baby, _oh,_ ” bucky cries as he comes. steve follows, whimpering and collapsing on to bucky. steve smiles into bucky’s skin, steve’s smiles were always breathtaking, bucky knows, like sunshine and everything good. steve doesn’t smile much anymore. bucky would do anything for that smile. they tangle and intertwine with each other and bucky thinks that maybe for a second, the stars might take pity on them, might let them _rest._

 

bucky knows steve deserves it more than anyone.

 

-

 

bucky jolts awake, screaming. he doesn’t register steve’s eyes shooting open, panicked, glowing in the dark.

“buck?” he asks, soft and concerned, not patronizing like everyone else. bucky shakes and steve wraps a blanket around his trembling frame.

“buck?” he asks again, softer.

“s-stevie?” bucky replies this time.

“yeah, baby, it’s me, you’re okay. you’re okay.”

 

steve knows it’s a lie. neither of them are ever going to be okay. all they can do is hope. sometimes hope is the greatest weapon of them all.

 

steve waits until buckys stopped trembling and rests his head on steve’s lap. steve does something he hasn’t in a long time. he sings.

 

he sings his ma’s sweet irish lullabies, can remember her honeyed voice melting in his ears. he doesn’t just sing. _he feels._ he loses himself into song, in a way he’d forgotten he knew how to do.

 

when he’s finished, bucky’s staring up at him, eyes wide and glinting in the moonlight.

“you sang,” bucky says. “i forgot you knew gaelic. you don’t sing anymore.”

steve smiles sadly, looking too old for his age, looking like war and fighting had eroded away at is innocence and brightness, which it had. “do you know gaelic?”

“no. my programming never covered it. hardly anyone speaks it anymore.”

“i know.”

“you should sing more.”

“i guess i will.”

 

maybe they’ll get a break soon, steve thinks.

 

-

 

steve leaves after two days. two days of making love, laughing and kissing, pretending that everything was okay, maybe it would be, bucky indulges himself in thinking. god, he’d never thought he and steve could have this.

 

one week later t’challa gives him an arm.

 

“where’s the fight?”

 

-

 

steve asks bucky how he’s been as if they’ve not seen each other in years, not a week. bucky smiles at him and makes a joke and steve’s heart nearly beats out of his chest. he has a new arm and it glows in the sunlight. he breathes in his lover when they hug. he’d washed his hair. he smells like peaches. steve’s favorite fruit is peaches.

 

the threat is bigger than any steve’s faced. thanos, hellbent on destroying half the universe. says it’s his _destiny_ or some bullshit like that.

 

they fight hard and they fight long.

 

“where’d he go?” steve hears himself asking thor. “thor, where’d he go?”

 

“steve?” he hears a voice. he whips around, he knows that voice.

 

it’s bucky.

 

steve watches in growing horror as his arm turns to dust, as he _disintegrates,_ as it spreads further and further up his body. and then- and then he’s gone. lost to the wind.

 

steve pitches forwards, staggering. he bends down to touch bucky’s remains.

 

sam goes next, then wanda.

 

but it hits him hard that bucky is gone.

 

his bucky.

 

his sweetheart, his best friend, his _lover._

 

he runs his thumb over the ring in his pocket.

 

he was going to propose.

 

“oh, god,” he hears himself say.

 

he feels empty. he feels dead.

 

he never thought he would have to mourn for his lover twice.

 

“b-buck, i’m sorry, i love you.” steve chokes out, tears falling freely now, the words carrying no weight and feeling meaningless to steve.

 

bucky doesn’t hear.

 

after all, apologies mean nothing to a dead man.

 


End file.
